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THIRD SECTOR: SORTING OUT RELATIONS AND CLARIFYING POSITIONS
Irina Dunaeva
Summary
The law on nongovernmental organizations enacted in 2013 pretty much determined the third sector’s agenda. Despite a certain progress in the mutual interaction between the government and civil society organizations, the authorities still pursue a restrictive policy towards the third sector.
The press highlighted a split in the National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum (National Platform) caused by divergent views on the role of civil society. Against the background of marginalization of a large part of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and the government’s reluctance to cooperate with them, civil society faces the risk of losing the status of a privileged partner of the European Union, which leads to an identity crisis within the organizations united by the National Platform.
Trends:
• NPOs actively use the Internet to communicate with the government and Europe in many respects because the dialogue with the authorities has been fruitless for a very long time;
• Opinions on the role of civil society in the dialogue with the authorities and Europe are increasingly confronting;
• Strategies offered by National Platform members still lack creative thinking, as sorting out relations and clarifying positions take all the steam there is.
Size and structure of the third sector
According to the official statistics provided by the Ministry of Justice of Belarus, in 20131, the number of registered nongovernmental organizations increased very slightly (they were 2,402 in 2011, 2,477 in 2012, and 2,521 in 2013) mostly owing to sports (595, 626 and 649, respectively) and youth NGOs (234, 248 and 256). The official statistics however do not give an exact number of NPOs and third sector entities in Belarus. Firstly, more and more organizations tend to seek registration as nonprofit institutions, or registration outside Belarus. *
See http://minjust.by/ru/site_menu/news?id=1512.
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It is hard to say how many they are in Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic or somewhere else because registration there is ideology-free.
Secondly, the classification with respect to lines of activity suggested by the Ministry of Justice does not give a clear picture of what this or that organization is doing. On the one hand, this uncertainty helps some of them to survive. On the other hand, real third sector institutions are often mixed with state-controlled ones purposefully established by the authorities, which contradict the basic principle of free and voluntary self-organization. For example, the Belarusian Republican Youth Union and the Young Pioneer Organization are listed as “youth organizations, including children’s ones.” In such a way, the statistics contributes to creation of a nice picture of developed civil society.
Besides, many experts insist that the actual number of NPOs is smaller than commonly believed. According to an NGO activity analysis made by Pyotr Kuznetsov, leader of the Gomel Democratic Forum, “only 52 out of 200 organizations can be called “nominally alive.”2 The situation is likely to be more or less the same in other regions. The information about liquidation of NPOs, reasons of their liquidation, or registration denials remains classified, which also camouflages the increasingly alarming situation in the third sector of Belarus.
Experts and public activists agree that there were no high-profile events in 2013. The government’s restrictive policy towards the third sector did not change either. Fewer organizations were given office rent discounts (coefficient at 0.1 of the base rate) from 451 to 1953, which put many legal organizations on the brink of survival. Opinions different from the official point of view get those who voice them publicly into trouble. Demonstrations, pickets and isolated spontaneous protest actions are regarded as breaking the law on mass events even if they are sanctioned by the authorities (for example, many were detained without excuse during the celebration of the Freedom Day on
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‘Alive’ NPOs get fewer in Belarusian regions // [Electronic resource] Mode of access: http://eurobelarus.info/news/society/2013/10/09/v-regionah-belarusi-zhivyh-npo-stanovitsya-vse-men-she.html.
See http://www.government.by/ru/solutions/2021.
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March 25, or Chernobyl Shliakh on April 26). It should be noted that the number of politically motivated detentions and arrests has been steadily declining. According to the Human Rights Center Viasna, 222 detentions and 100 arrests were reported in 2012, and 153 and 49, respectively, in 20134.
Attempts to dialogue with the government: legislative initiatives
Amendments to the law on nongovernmental organizations5 did not mitigate restrictions on grassroots initiatives. The history of the preparation and debates on the amendments say almost as much about their essence, as their content. The government demonstrated a biased, negative attitude and unwillingness to treat civil society as a full partner in September 2013 when proposals on the bill made by the Legal Transformation Center were rejected as inappropriate. Nevertheless, civil society organizations still attempted to fight for their interests throughout the year.
In July, twenty-five NPOs addressed the parliament and the Council of Ministers of Belarus requesting a hearing to improve the legal framework for their formation and operations. “Irrelevant” was the answer received on July 25. An attempt of legal experts of the third sector to meet with parliamentarians in August was met with no success.
On October 9, the Legal Initiatives Center and the Assembly of Pro-Democratic NGOs initiated a public hearing on the bill. Experts came to the conclusion that the new version of the law does not stimulate development of civil society, does not resolve problems with registration of NPOs and arbitrariness of officials, and limits domestic and foreign funding.
The law still prohibits acting on behalf of unregistered organizations. Section 193.1 of the Criminal Code establishes criminal liability for creation and participation in activities of unregistered organizations. Although no one has been actually
See http://spring96.org/ru/publications.
The law passed on October 2, 2013 and endorsed by the president on November 4, 2013 took effect on February 20, 2014.
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prosecuted for that (just five official warnings in 2013), the threat still restrains civic engagement.
Democratic parties and organizations submitted their proposals on amendments to the laws on elections and referen-dums, which were ignored again: on October 2, the House of Representatives passed the bill, which does not guarantee free and fair elections6.
In January, the Belarusian Association of Journalists (BAJ) sent proposals on amendments to the bill on the mass media aimed at securing freedom of the media to the parliamentary commission on human rights, national relations and the mass media. The proposals prioritized cancellation of obligatory permits for registration of media outlets and regulation of electronic media, which leads to the total control over the Internet, as well as restrictions on activities of independent journalists. Parliamentarians took some of the amendments into account when passing the bill in the second reading on June 24. In particular, they crossed out the requirement for re-registration in case of a changed legal address. However, independent journalists say that those adjustments had little effect on the general antidemocratic orientation of the law7.
Next time, civil society attempted to get itself noticed when the Public Bologna Committee proposed amendments to the laws on education8. The PBC offered a new version of the Education Code thus consolidating student advocacy groups, employers, and other stakeholders for more profound involvement of society in education management. Parliamentary hearings on amendments to the Education Code held on December 4, 2013 showed that decentralization of education management was supported not only by civil society, but also by all participants in
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8
Review “Freedom of Associations and the Legal Status of Nonprofit Organizations in Belarus” («Свабода асацьшцьшў i прававы стан некамерцыйных арганізацыяў у Беларусі»), 2013, see http://www. lawtrend.org/ru/content/about/news/Svaboda-asaciasii-v-Belamsi-2013-obzor/
Parliamentarians took several proposals made by the Belarusian Association of Journalists, which, however, did not change the essence of the law on the mass media. See http://baj.by/be/node/9579.
Education Code. New Version, http://bolognaby.org/?p=1028.
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the educational process. Government agencies however proved to be not ready for a real reform in this area.
So, the attempts to call attention to the perspective of the legal rules established for civil society and to publicly discuss and make use of amendments, which bring the laws to conformity with the Constitution, can hardly be regarded as effective. The authorities do not openly refuse to talk. They more likely sidestep the issue and only hear proposals, which do not fundamentally alter the essence of the laws.
Local authorities avoid taking responsibility for making uncomfortable decisions, which may irritate higher-ups. They are very cautious when communicating with NPOs and prefer to prohibit grassroots initiatives to be on the safe side. Cooperation between local authorities and NPOs is maintained on the level of personal contacts and only concerns politically neutral areas, such as environment, business development, ecotourism, etc.9, although all problems are politicized by the very fact of civil society involvement.
Revaluation of the Internet activity
In the absence of freedom of the media and a public discourse on crucial social issues, the work done by NGOs goes unnoticed by most people. Only organizers and participants are usually aware of local actions (pickets, seminars, aid programs, etc.). Prodemocratic and human rights NGOs are rarely mentioned on television or in newspapers, or, if they are, the attitude is mostly negative. As never before, the life of NGOs is concentrated within the groups of persons who have the same position, or on the Internet, which has remained the prime means to make a public statement. Since street actions are almost always met with fierce resistance of the authorities, the value of the cyberspace for formation and manifestation of a civic position has raised manifold. Last year’s online activism of NGOs was particularly heightened. They posted petitions, appeals, demands, letters of support and statements on a wide range of political and social problems, such as the release of political prisoners, the attitude
See the monitoring by the Centre for European Transformation.
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towards the death penalty in Belarus, deployment of Russian air force units, landscaped areas clearance, etc. Although all organizations have their own websites, Internet users not involved in the third sector’s life can get there only incidentally. The Internet basically responds to search requests, which leaves NGOs marginalized.
Internet opportunities, which might be used to induce civic engagement, were discussed during the conference ‘Civil Society in Belarus in 2013’ held on June 14-15 in Warsaw under the auspices of the Council of Europe. The euphoria about possible protest surges like the Revolution through Social Networks of 2011-2012 has evaporated. The potential of the Internet activism is mostly estimated in a low key today. Skeptics say that the online activity cannot substitute for real actions. Moreover, it only weakens the real activity being a kind of emigration to the virtual world.
Dissociation of the third sector and dialogue with Europe
In 2013, Belarusian civil society organizations continued debates on the role of NGOs in the political process, their influence on social development, interaction with the authorities, institutions and initiatives of the European Union, and joint action strategies. The content of the discussions was largely determined by disadvantageous conditions for development and expansion of the scope of NGOs’ activities, and, accordingly, the increasing competition among them.
The debates on centralization of management of the National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, which unites around 60 third sector entities, stood out and were extensively covered by the independent media10. Heated discussions among the National Platform members showed that the third sector lacks unity. Opposition members of the National
10 Position of the National Platform of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society
Forum on development of the European Dialogue on Modernization, see http://eurobelarus.info/news/policy/2013/09/25/pozitsiya-natsional-noy-platformy-grazhdanskogo-obschestva-otnositel-no-razvitiya-edm. html.
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Platform (the Belarusian Institute for Strategic Studies, the Brussels-based Office for a Democratic Belarus, the Assembly of NGOs, and the Belarusian Association of Journalists among them), which have become less active as National Platform stakeholders, disagree with the strategy proposed by EuroBe-larus, which, in turn, has pulled out of the House of Mutual Understanding initiative of the Office for a Democratic Belarus and the Minsk-based Office for European Expertise and Communication.
Conclusion
The government still has no interest in supporting grassroots initiatives and public examination of bills. The government’s policy towards the third sector is generally restrictive, and the situation was not remedied by the new law on public associations in any way.
However, some positive developments in relations between the state and third sector organizations have been outlined in 2013, e. g. introduction of a state order for social services, or the law on cruelty to animals as a result of a public campaign.
One should not, however, expect that the government policy will change significantly. Nevertheless, stepped up cooperation to address politically neutral questions is still possible.
In 2013, debates on the role of civil society and interaction between third sector organizations within the National Platform have shattered hopes to use the National Platform to consolidate civil society.
